The first games session of February took place at the Board Room in Hiroshima on Saturday evening. On the top table our host and three others played Arcs, a space odyssey game by Cole Wehrle, the bloke who created Oath (last week's game), and Pax Pamir that we played several times last autumn.
Asgard's Chosen
Meanwhile, I played a game of Asgard's Chosen for the first time, and later I played my first game of Shogi (Japanese chess) in over a decade...
Asgard's Chosen is a "deck builder" game that is also played on a modular board. The game master was another English chap, also called David, also from Kent as am I, he, however, a "Man of Kent" and I a "Kentish Man."
He also happens to be a past master when it comes to deck builder games, so I had no illusions about my prospects last night. Yes, I did watch one of the game review videos he sent me, but the presentation of the game was so bad that I really began to fear for my sanity in agreeing to play the game at all!
Contemplating the Species "Homo Japonicus"
However, fortified with a stonking good curry from a nearby Japanese curry restaurant, I joined the session only to find that a third player had somehow been unceremoniously levered into our game, a Japanese bloke, pleasant enough chap and all that, but the sort of bod who needs to be told what to do at every step, every time. What is it with the male of the species Homo Japonicus and the lack of initiative?
The couple playing Arcs with our host John had brought some cakes for all and sundry to consume, but Homo Japonicus had to be given specific permission to move his butt in a cakewards direction before presuming to include himself in the open invitation to wolf those sweetmeats down. (The female of the species would need no prompting in this department.)
That is not to say that I did not need to be coached and reminded on several occasions about what to do, because Asgard's Chosen is almost as complex as a Cole Wehrle game, which is saying something. However, I did attempt to use my initiative even if I ballsed up the procedure much of the time.
Appeasing the Gods
To win the basic game that we were playing, you need to appease four Viking gods. Homo Japonicus failed to do that at all as nobody gave him any specific permission so to do. I managed to appease one god before our Man of Kent had worked out how to appease all four. Typical of the underhand ways of those old Jutes.
I must admit that by the end of the game I realized that I had enjoyed it far more than I'd expected to (after watching that dreadful game intro video) and would be happy if our Man of Kent brought it out for another airing.
Our Host Ropes Me Into Playing Shogi
With our game over, and Arcs still grinding along, our host, John, invited me to play a game of Japanese chess with our Japanese guest, as that was the game he had really been hoping to play.
I agreed, as I know how to play the game, and indeed used to play it a lot, though only casually.
Now our Japanese friend was in his element, and it was fun to play shogi with him after such a long time. Shogi is played on a 9 x 9 board and each player has 20 pieces. One big difference between chess and shogi is that in the latter game, when you capture a piece, it becomes yours to place on the board as a future move option, which is really what the charm of the game consists of for me.
I managed to navigate through the tiresome and stilted Japanese-man-asking-in-astonishment-how-Johnny-foreigner-managed-to-learn-shogi questions, and played with abandon until eventually succumbing to checkmate, but only after having forced his king to go wandering into the middle of the board.
I might just dust off my own shogi board and take it out for a spin, but I have no intention of studying shogi in any detail. Studying chess is enough for one lifetime, and if I were to invest my time in studying a Japanese game, it would be Japanese "riichi" mahjong rather than shogi or igo.
It was a cold evening and the sky was full of sleet, so the two English chaps, that is, the two Davids, that is the two sons of Kent (one a Kentish Man, the other a Man of Kent) donned their coats and hats (to a barrage of unsolicited comments about the Man of Kent looking like Sherlock Holmes, and the Kentish Man looking like a Peaky Blinder) and headed out in time to catch a tram, each to his respective neck of the Hiroshima woods.
Cheers!
David Hurley
#InspiredFocus
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